


Eddie Kaspbrak Discovers (Almost All Of) The Secrets Of The Universe

by dumbofheart



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Someone Else Dies, Anne of Green Gables reference, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Blink and you miss it Merlin(BBC) reference, Eddie has several crises going on and Richie's death plays a part in that, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Like in regards to Eddie getting his life together, M/M, None of the Losers are straight, Panic Attacks, Richie is not coming back he's staying dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 14:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21393844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbofheart/pseuds/dumbofheart
Summary: Richie manages to save Eddie, but not himself. This is the aftermath.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & The Losers Club, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 36





	Eddie Kaspbrak Discovers (Almost All Of) The Secrets Of The Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyruling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyruling/gifts).

> If it hadn't been for your very good reaction to the initial idea, this would not have been written.
> 
> So some time ago, I got this idea into my head:
> 
> "Ok but what if Richie had saved Eddie by throwing him off himself and he got killed instead and Eddie realized he was in love with Richie all this time and then later Eddie went to the Kissing Bridge and he decided to commemorate his lost love by carving their initials and then as he left the camera panned a little to the side (far enough that Eddie wouldn't have noticed what was etched there from his position but close enough that he could've if he had just bothered to look) and there we saw the memory of past Richie finishing up the "E" and then they went off in separate directions years apart and so they never knew what could have been if only any one of a million things had been different"
> 
> It was supposed to be short, but then I started writing and I thought, "Ok maybe I should write out the death scene to really showcase how this impacts Eddie," and then I saw a post about Eddie breaking down over Richie's glasses if Richie had died and I said to myself, "I could incorporate the breakdown into this fic." And then I was like, "Well Eddie's gay and he should have thoughts about that" which turned into "None of the Losers are straight actually" and that became "I want to talk about Stan and project onto him," which paved the way for "Bev and Eddie have similar trauma and I should address that." Finally, finally, I was able to finish up with the original idea. Funny how that works. Anyway I blame the It discord I'm in, not because they gave me these ideas, but because I kept asking for validation and they gave it every time.

He knows it's normal to have nightmares about it - not just _ It _ it, but the whole fucking thing. He thinks he'd be worried if he _ wasn't _having nightmares.

Eddie turns over in bed and looks at the time. 3:24 am. It's the second night - well, now morning - they've all been in the Townhouse since defeating It, and the fifth time he's jolted awake and bitten back sobs of despair.

He sighs. For all he knows that he'd be incredibly disturbed if this wasn't happening, he still thinks it would be easier. So much easier if he didn't have to keep reliving that moment when Pennywise's claw-leg had whistled through the air and stabbed Richie. Definitely easier if that didn't inevitably make the guilt well up like a river during the monsoon season.

He takes a shaky breath in, and lets it out slowly. 

  
In the darkness before the dawn, Eddie wishes it hadn't taken Richie sacrificing himself in order to save him, for him to realize that he'd been in love with Richie this entire _ goddamn _ time.

* * *

_ "Hey yeah, there he is buddy! Hey, Richie, listen, I think I got him, man. I did! I think I killed him fo-!” _

_ Richie pushed him off and to the side. Eddie caught his breath after the impact, then turned to yell at him because what the fuck? He'd just _ saved _ Richie, and now his back was going to be fucked up probably, and - _

_ And Eddie's gaze landed on Richie just in time to see him get stabbed and flung away into a little corner. _

_ Everything after that was a bit of a blur. Or rather, most of it was. Crystal clear moments had shone through. He couldn't remember running to Richie's side, but he would never be able to forget the way Richie looked at him - dazed and wide-eyed, like he had just been saved from the Deadlights again. He didn't process the fact that he wanted to hold Richie's hand until it was clutched tightly in his grasp. He knew there was blood, and a lot of it, but he wasn't really seeing it so much as feeling it soaking into his clothes, his skin. _

_ He'd never be able to recall what frantic words had fallen out of his own mouth, but he'd always be able to hear Richie gasping out, "Eds. Hey Eds, listen. Need to tell you something." A soft, serious look, and Eddie leaned in, a weird feeling growing in his chest alongside the panic and fear. _

_ (Later he would realize it had been hope.) _

_ He leaned in, ready to take in Richie's words as if they were gospel, and Richie said: "It wasn't just your mom I was fucking." _

_ Eddie blinked. He thought that Richie must be delirious, because it was one thing to bring up their personal running gag; it was another to - what? Try to change it up? _

_ He thought for a long moment on what to say, and finally settled on: “This is the only time I’m letting you call me Eds, so savor it.” _

_ Richie let out an unsteady exhalation that could have passed for laughter under different circumstances. Eddie still found himself pathetically grateful for hearing it. _

_ “Y-you love it. But Eds, Eddie, it wasn’t just your mom.” _

_ Definitely delirious. “Yeah, I got that buddy. You were out there fucking everyone’s mom. Tell you what, as soon as we get out of here, you can make all the ‘your mom’ jokes your heart desires, ok? I won’t even complain the first few times.” _

_ “Ed -” _

_ Eddie leaned in closer. “Hey, shhh, don’t try to talk. You gotta save your energy. Listen to Dr. Kaspbrak.” He shot Richie a tremulous smile, feeling it become steadier when Richie returned it. He’d be alright. He had to be. Richie Tozier was larger than life, spiritually larger than some stupid, weak - _

_ And suddenly he knew how they could defeat It. _

_ He took off his jacket and pressed it to Richie’s wound, whispering a quick, “I’ll be back” before shooting to his feet and running towards Pennywise, who had cornered the other Losers in a cavern. _

_ “HEY, FUCKFACE!” Pennywise’s monstrous form turned to face him, gleaming eyes fixed on him maliciously. He stared It down. “Yeah, I’m right here, asshole! And you know what? I’m not scared of you!” What was it he always heard kids yelling these days? “Cuz you’ve got no dick energy!” _

_ “What are you _ doing _ ?!” It sounded like Bev, but he couldn’t be sure. All shrieks of terror started to sound the same after a while. _

_ With an athleticism he didn’t know he possessed, Eddie rolled away from an oncoming claw and back onto his feet in an almost smooth motion. He ducked in between Pennywise’s many legs and ran until he reached the others, and said, panting, “It was - leper - almost beat it - it was weak - so small - we have to make it small!” _

_ He looked at them with wide eyes, hoping they’d understand what he was trying to say. He caught Mike’s gaze and held it. There seemed to be a brief moment of understanding, but then Bill was shouting, “Look out!” and they all jumped out of the way as Pennywise mounted another attack. They ran around the cave, avoiding It’s increasingly frustrated homicidal attempts, until they were able to duck into a small tunnel. Pennywise lunged after them, but couldn’t fit into the tiny space. But Eddie couldn’t feel relief, not when he knew that It could take any form it pleased. Not when Richie was all by himself, still hidden away in his little corner, possibly taking his last breaths. _

_ He turned to Mike, who said, “You didn’t mean physically small.” Eddie couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement, so he just shook his head mutely. Mike nodded. “There’s more than one way to make someone small.” _

_ Bev’s face lit up. “You can make them feel it. You can make them feel weak.” At Mike and Eddie’s nods, she lunged at Pennywise, running around and through his legs until she was behind him, all the while shouting, “You’re just a stupid fucking clown! You can’t do shit!” _

_ The rest of them quickly followed, all of them hurling their own insults. _

_ “You’re a weak bitch!” _

_ “Try rubbing two brain cells together sometime, maybe then you’ll be worth fighting!” _

_ “Shrink down some so that you can catch these hands!” _

_ “You’re going to fucking perish, you hear me dickwad!” _

_ Pennywise tried to intimidate them, but Eddie could feel it. They had hit their stride. They weren’t going to back down. Instead, they were stepping forward with every new thing they called out, their voices getting stronger with every yell of “You’re nothing but a weak old woman,” and “Just a fucking leper.” _

_ As their shouts got stronger, Pennywise got smaller and smaller, writhing and trying to transform into things he thought would terrify them, and getting more and more desperate with every passing second. _

_ It was so satisfying to see Pennywise like this. Weak and small and scared, like he’d made so many people feel. Eddie remembered, with a sudden clarity, how Mike had told them about the young man who had recounted how he and his boyfriend had been jumped and beaten, and how his boyfriend had been further brutalized by this thing of nightmares. Eddie’s fury, which had started to fuzz at the edges with exhaustion, blazed anew, and he spat out, “Nothing but a hateful little homophobe, aren’t you?” He didn’t bother to look to see if his comment had elicited a reaction in his friends. _

_ In the next moment, it didn’t matter, because Mike, Mike who had had his childhood stolen by their hometown at least thrice over and had stuck around to remember it all anyway, stepped close to the clown and said firmly, “You’re going to wish you had been awake when the fire took my parents, just so you could burn with them. Racist motherfucker.” He reached down, ignoring Pennywise’s cries and attempts to stop him, and pulled out It’s beating heart. _

_ He held it out to the rest of them. They put their hands in, like the start of some demented cheer. Eddie thought hysterically that Richie would probably make some type of joke here. _

_ They all squeezed together, squeezed with everything they had, and the heart was crushed, and It was gone. Hopefully forever this time. _

_ For a moment, nothing else mattered. The only thing of importance was that they were free. Derry was free. But reality came crashing down soon enough. Eddie whipped around and ran towards Richie’s prone body, shouting for him to hold on, hold on, he was coming back. _

_ He dropped to his knees beside Richie, letting out a relieved breath and squeezing the other man’s shoulders when Richie fluttered his eyelashes at him. “You -” Richie coughed. “You really snatched his wig, huh?” _

_ A startled laugh escaped him. “What - what are you talking about, Trashmouth?” _

_ “Something the kids say.” _

_ “So it's the kids who write all your material.” He shushed the other man when he tried to speak. “You can save the comebacks for when we get out of here. Come on, we’ll help you up.” He gestured his head at their friends, “Help me get him up, guys.” _

_ “Not gonna - make it, Eduardo,” Richie gasped out, coughing up blood. Eddie swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “Just - just hold me. Please.” _

_ Before he could respond, the cave started to shake. He looked around and saw that rocks were starting to fall. The cave was going to crumble around them. _

_ Richie seemed to come to the same realization. “Never mind. Leave me. Go.” _

_ Eddie shook his head frantically. “Not happening, dipshit. Ben, get over here and help me carry him.” Luckily for his nerves, Ben did as he was told and knelt, sliding his arms under Richie’s body. _

_ “No way, Haystack.” Richie didn’t even turn to look at Ben; he just kept his gaze focused on Eddie. It was too intense. It wasn’t nearly intense enough, the focus already fading from his eyes. Eddie willed himself not to look away. _

_ “Rich -” _

_ “Go! Just -” he coughed weakly, and Eddie blinked back tears. He had the half-mad thought that he’d rather Pennywise was alive and kicking again rather than have to go through another second of this. Richie seemed to gain a second wind and continued. _

_ “Want you to know, want you all to know,” - his dazed stare roved around the semi circle they had formed around him before settling back on Eddie - “it wasn’t just Ed’s mom. ‘Twas Bill’s dad, too.” He gave Eddie a trembling smile, then turned his head slightly to - presumably - wink at Bill. It looked more like his eye had a bad twitch. And while Eddie struggled to comprehend just why this was so important for Richie to keep trying to say, the man under his touch went completely still. It was unsettling - how one moment Richie’s eyes held life and albeit flickering warmth, and the next it was just gone. No warning, no gradual fade. Just a disappearing act. _

_ Still, Eddie couldn’t just give up. Richie never would. _

_ “Come on Richie, no, don’t do this to me, please, come on, wake up.” He slapped lightly at Richie’s face, ignoring the cut-off sobs behind him and the cave shaking harder and harder around them. “Rich, this isn’t funny, come on Trashmouth, even your stolen material was miles better than this.” _

_ “Honey, he’s - he’s gone.” _

_ Eddie felt a sudden burst of rage burn through him. He latched on to it gladly. “Shut the fuck up, Bev! Just - just shut it!” _

_ Just as suddenly though, the anger left him and he slumped forward. “He just - he can’t be gone. He’s Richie.” _

_ A hand rested on his shoulder. “I know, Eddie. I know,” Bev said, and he took a moment to be grateful that this group of friends knew and understood him so well. He reached up to grasp at her hand and then looked up at all of them, hoping their understanding extended to what he was going to say. _

_ “We can’t leave him here. If you try to make me, I’ll fight with everything I have to stay with him and you’ll end up having to carry someone out anyway. So what’s it gonna be?” _

_ The rest of them glanced at each other briefly, and then nodded at him grimly. Ben easily took Richie into his arms, cradling him. If Richie had still been alive - injured, but alive - Eddie would have made a crack about how all of Richie’s dreams were coming true. As it was, he ignored the Richie voice in his head that had an immediate “your mom” retort and started running. _

_ Getting out with Richie in tow proved to be the struggle they had all expected. They had to get out of the cistern first, and after some panicked maneuvering of Richie's limp body, Ben got him situated over one of his shoulders and carefully made his way up, with Eddie right behind him. Wading across the water was a little easier: Ben just deftly positioned Richie across both his shoulders in a bastardized version of a fireman's carry. He got up the well ladder in the same way, making sure Richie's limbs were tightly secured under his arms. From there it was just a matter of not getting crushed by falling debris as they all ran out of Neibolt House. _

_ Eddie felt his heart in his throat the whole way through. _

_ They made it out onto the street in the nick of time, the house crumbling and going up in dust behind them, Mother Gothel from Tangled style. Eddie took that to mean that the evil really had been defeated for good this time. _

_ He had the vague sense that he should feel relieved, and an even vaguer sense that he sort of was. But looking at Richie's body, which was once again being tenderly cradled, the feeling that overpowered everything and anything else was loss. _

* * *

He stays in bed for 2 hours before giving up on rest entirely. Without the comfort of sleep, the bed feels like too much: too hot, too stiff, too claustrophobic with the covers on and too vulnerable with the covers off. So even as his body protests him getting up, Eddie stands and makes his way downstairs.

There's a bar in the lobby, he knows. Maybe he can do shots of whatever he can open first while he tries not to think of Richie doing the same at the Jade of the Orient. That was only a few days ago, less than a week. It seems longer, like yet another three decades he has to fit into his reality.

He’s in the middle of throwing back the first shot when he hears a creak on the stairs. Luckily the alcohol still goes down the right pipe and he doesn’t start choking; he can just keep his now scared breathing quiet as he grips the shot glass tight. If it’s somehow the fucking clown again, at least he will have some sort of weapon with him.

It’s Bill’s familiar face that rounds the bend though, and Eddie gives him a tired smile that probably looks more like a grimace before going back to Operation: Get Fucked Up.

Bill joins him silently, and it isn’t long before the three remaining Losers trickle in. Ben and Beverly come in holding hands. It’s a testament to how exhausted they all are that no one even raises a requisite teasing eyebrow at them. Eddie can tell that they’re all thinking of what Richie would have said, though none of them voice it out loud. He figures it’s the grief hitting them once again that keeps them quiet. It certainly is for him.

Minutes of silent drinking later, Bev speaks up, though she keeps her gaze trained on the glass of cheap whiskey she’s been nursing. “So we all got that Richie was bi, right?”

Eddie joins in on the chorus of “yeah” that arises. Because really, what else could Richie have been talking about down in that cavern? He had ruminated on it to himself when they had all gone down to the quarry two days prior, before finally realizing that Richie Tozier, he of the mom jokes, had wanted to come out to them in his final moments. He’s glad he wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t be, if they all had individually come to the same conclusion.

As he forgoes his glass altogether and takes a swig straight from the bottle, Eddie tries not to (once again) break down over the two other revelations he had had at the quarry. There’s plenty of time for that later.

* * *

_ Everyone wanted to go to the quarry. No, that was too weak a way to describe it. Everyone was _ desperate _ to go to the quarry, to symbolically wash off the horrors of the past if only for a few moments. No one was going to say that though, not even the writer among them. _

_ If Eddie hadn’t been just as desperate, he would have said no how, no way, if you guys all want to go ahead and catch diseases, then be my guest, but I’m going back to the Townhouse and showering. _

_ The situation being what it was, though, they couldn’t do either of those things, at least not right away. First, they had to get Richie’s body to the hospital, so that he could be declared officially, legally dead. They had to feed the hospital workers a story about how they had come across Henry Bowers and how he had attacked them, forcing them to kill him, but not before Bowers had gotten a good stabbing in. Whether or not the staff actually believed them was up in the air, but it was written down as the official cause of death, and that was all that mattered. _

_ Then came the whole clusterfuck about who was next of kin (they didn’t think Richie had any), if the deceased had a will (a collective shrug had been the answer to that question), and who else could have more information on the deceased (Richie’s agent, but no one knew how to contact him, though Mike swore up and down he could get in touch with the man - just not at the moment.) _

_ For all Eddie knew, this wouldn’t fly in any other town, but this was Derry - even with It gone, the weird Obliviate spell or whatever the fuck over the town would take a while to dissipate. At least, that was what Mike said. And for all his lying and half truths, Mike had been able to accurately keep tabs on all of them and had been right about how it had to be them to defeat the eldritch horror. Eddie figured he could be trusted with this. _

_ More questions were answered, arrangements for a funeral two weeks from then were made, they made an appointment with the funeral home to further solidify the funeral plans, and by the time it was all over with, Eddie didn’t know if he even really wanted to go to the quarry anymore. _

_ One look at the others was enough for him to know that even if he didn’t want to, he needed to. _

_ They went, and it was just like old times. Bev was the first one to jump off the cliff, despite the sign warning them not to. The rest of them followed suit. _

_ For a while, it felt like they were kids again. Sure, the water was probably crawling with infections waiting to happen, but did it really matter when they were _ here _ and _ alive, _ when they got to experience the relatively mundane exhilaration of cliff diving and splashing at each other and screaming themselves hoarse? _

_ It was when they had tired themselves out that sadness made itself known again. Yes, they had survived, but at what cost? Stan had taken his mortality into his own hands, and in a way, Richie had done so as well. They remembered each other now, but two of them would have to live on only in their memories. _

_ No one spoke for a long while. Eddie floated on his back and let himself slowly drift away from the other Losers, all the while obsessing over Richie's last words. It was Bill's dad, too? What did that even mean? Had he been trying to surprise them into laughing one last time, to make his oncoming death easier? _

_ Eddie frowned. While it did sound like something Richie would do, it didn't feel right. The words had felt too important to simply be a last attempt at comfort. There had to be a deeper meaning. _

_ The answer came to him slowly, nagging at him yet fading away whenever he tried to think too hard on it. When the idea finally formed solidly in his mind, he pulled himself upright so that he was wading in the water rather than floating. It made sense - or rather, nothing else fit the bill for an old joke turned on its head for the sake of a serious message. _

_ His gaze flicked over to his friends. He wondered if any of them had figured it out. Then it occurred to him that maybe _ they _ weren’t searching for meaning in Richie’s final words, because they, unlike him, weren’t consumed by thoughts of Richie Tozier. They had never been in love with him. _

_ The thought startled him, not so much because of the thought itself, but more for how natural it felt: as if it had always been there, waiting to be known. _

_ And oh God, wasn’t that a timely revelation. Eddie swallowed. Then he did it again. And again, and once more with feeling. He could feel an awful lump in his throat, and it was getting hard to breathe actually, because Jesus fucking Christ he had been in love with Richie, was still in love with Richie, and he had barely realized it, and now he’d never get to tell him. _

_ (He probably wouldn’t have even if Richie had made it out alive, but it was about having a choice. It was the principle of the thing.) _

_ He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched and unclenched his hands in an effort to stave off panicked sobs. He kind of wished he had his inhaler. It had always helped him get through what he now knew were panic attacks, even if it was just a placebo effect. He’d give anything to have that placebo effect right now. _

_ Distantly, he remembered a work colleague from when he was still climbing up the corporate ladder. They had noticed that Eddie used his inhaler frequently and had been delighted to meet a fellow asthmatic. A tentative friendship had formed where they bonded over their severe asthma and had gotten to talking about how they’d both had it since they were kids and how hard that was. That was when it had all gone sideways. Eddie’s coworker had started asking about long term inhalers, and if his mom had had to remind him to use it every morning and night because kids tended to forget things like that. Eddie’s response had basically boiled down to: “What.” (Long term inhaler? His mother had never mentioned anything like that. What?) _

_ The colleague had then informed Eddie that severe asthmatics typically had two inhalers, a long-term one for morning and night and a rescue one for throughout the day. When Eddie simply stood there with what was no doubt a stupefied expression on his face, they had said his name in a soft, concerned tone. It had snapped Eddie out of his shock and he had stuttered out some half-assed excuse about a project he needed to get back to. A few days later, they had approached him at his desk and placed a sheet of paper in front of him. “I think what you’re having are panic attacks,” they said. “They can feel a lot like asthma attacks, but you don’t need an inhaler for them. Just...go to a doctor, man. They’ll help wean you off the medication you’re used to, maybe get you on something you do need, and this -” he pointed at the sheet of paper “ - can also help with the actual problem. And you can talk to me if you want.” _

_ Eddie avoided that coworker like the plague after that, despite their attempts to remain friendly with him. It was a relief when he had gotten a promotion and an office on a different floor. From then on, he had never seen them again. As for the paper they had left him with, he had almost thrown it away without even looking at it, but something compelled him not to. (Looking back, he thought it might have been the voice of young Eddie trying to make itself known.) It had turned out to be a list of grounding techniques, which he read through with a strange, sick feeling in his gut. Then he had shoved the thing into his briefcase and tried not to think about it ever again. _

_ It had worked, mostly. Even so, the information came back to him now, as if his subconscious had filed it away for a moment like this, when he was ready to use it: _

  1. _Find five things you can see. Well that was easy. There was Bill and Bev and Ben and Mike, and there was the cliff they had jumped off of._
  2. _Find four things you can touch. He could feel his nails when he clenched his fist again. He could feel the cool water around him. There was a convenient rock nearby, and he reached out and grasped at it firmly. He brought up a shaky hand to clutch at his shirt. There. That was the fourth thing._
  3. _Three things you can hear. There was a bird somewhere chirping. He ran his hand on its side across the water's surface and it whooshed around him. He remembered, suddenly, clambering on top of Richie in an effort to dunk him into the water of this very quarry, and he whispered to himself, “I was so gay for you, Richie.” Then he thought about Myra and his mother and how he always felt weirdly guilty and exhilarated whenever he made eye contact with certain men, in a way he never did with women. “Oh. Wow. I think I’m just gay.” He’d have to unpack that later._
  4. _Two things you can smell. He inhaled and made a face. Technically, the smell of the quarry was a vast network of conflicting smells, and that would have to do. He couldn’t exactly go up to his friends for a whiff of their necks or something._
  5. _And one thing you can taste. He ran his tongue gently over the still healing wound on the inside of his cheek. There was still a faint taste of copper, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that he was fucking calm once again, and he could join his friends._

_ They smiled wanly once he waded his way back to them. One of them, or maybe all of them, sniffled. It sounded loud in the silence. For a moment, Eddie thought this would be it: the five of them taking comfort from each other as they each allowed themselves to wallow in grief. _

_ And then Ben said, “It’s too quiet without him. I keep waiting to hear one of his jokes.” _

_ There was a chorus of almost relieved agreement, as if they had all just been waiting to be pulled out of their own heads. “One of us would have had to beep beep him,” Eddie offered. The shaky laughter that followed made him feel warm. _

_ “Stan would have been the first to do it,” Bill said with a sad smile. _

_ “Oh definitely.” _

_ “He wouldn’t have even needed to say anything, he’d just give him that Look.” _

_ “That Look was legendary -” _

_ “He probably would have knocked Richie’s glasses off his face, too.” _

_ In future days, Eddie would think about this comment and try to decipher why exactly it, of all things, had been the straw that broke the camel's back. He’d never quite figure it out, but he’d always remember with almost humiliating clarity how hearing it had made him break out into hysterical laughter. _

_ The laughter went on and on, long enough for Bev to reach out worriedly. “Talk to us, hon. What’s going on in that head of yours?” _

_ Eddie let out something that was possibly the lovechild of a howl and a cackle. What was going on in his head? Too much, so much that he didn’t even know where to begin, or even how to properly articulate it. How could he explain that he’d always been in Richie’s orbit, craving his attention and never being satisfied? Would they even understand how, as kids, there always seemed to be this gnawing little beast inside him, scratching at his heart and his lungs until he couldn’t fucking breathe, and how it always settled down the moment Richie looked at him? Or how that monstrous tiny creature never settled for long, because Richie giving him attention just made it ravenous for more and more and more, and he could never figure out what more it could have wanted, what more _ he _ could have wanted; wasn’t it enough for Richie to be there and to be his friend and to look at him with that happy, teasing glint in his eye? _

_ Not to mention his years of forgetting, when he’d spot that foul-mouthed comedian on some late night show or SNL or on Netflix. The other Losers had certainly never felt that confused mix of pleased and exasperated and angry just seeing him on screen. And they definitely didn’t feel guilty over that cocktail of emotions either. _

_ And now - well now he had just figured out he was gay in the midst of realizing his long-standing love for his dead best friend. What words could there possibly be to encompass all that without rambling and crying and stopping and starting and outright screaming? _

_ In the end, he settled for the wisp of a thought that had immediately come to him when Bev had mentioned Richie’s glasses: “We didn’t clean them. His glasses,” he clarified when the group just stared at him. “There’s probably dirt and grime all over them and he can’t - he wouldn’t be able to see.” His eyes watered. “We should have cleaned them. We could have, in the hospital, and we fucking didn’t and now he won’t be able to see.” He sniffled and wiped at his eyes furiously. _

_ Bill came closer to him and took his hand. “Hey, hey,” he said soothingly, as if he was talking to a spooked animal. Eddie supposed that he kind of looked the part. Bill cleared his throat awkwardly. “You know, the mortician will clean them. It’ll be ok.” _

_ Someone muttered, “Oh my God, Bill, that’s not the point, how are you a writer when you don’t know symbolism.” Eddie didn’t know who had spoken until Ben pulled him close and shot Bill a sad look. Then he couldn’t believe he hadn’t immediately sussed it out. Of course it was Ben, the guy who pined for 27 years and knew it, even if he didn’t know who he was pining for. He of the meaningful signed yearbook page and the poem that was no doubt written better than any and all of Bill’s endings. Of course he’d get it. _

_ The simple fact of someone understanding that it wasn’t about clean glasses, it was about how they had completely and totally failed Richie, was what caused the dam to break. _

_ Eddie Kaspbrak sobbed while surrounded by Ben’s arms, then surrounded by all his friends’ arms, and he knew that it wouldn’t be the last time, but it was better than never allowing himself to start. _

* * *

They’ve all gone back to drinking silently, though Eddie doesn’t think the subject has been dropped. He’s proven right when Mike says, “Stan definitely knew, didn’t he.”

It is by no means a question, despite the fact that they have no way to prove the statement’s veracity. And yet…

The Losers have a bond, Eddie knows. A bond formed by being seven outcasts in a small, backwards town that hated them and fighting and defeating an alien clown entity. They have trauma range, and even without the trauma they all genuinely like each other, so - automatic bond. There might be things they’ll never know unless they tell each other, but this isn’t one of them. Eddie’s sure of it. The sun is a star, bacteria exists, and Stanley Uris knew that his best friend since the tender age of four was bisexual.

"Do you think he told him or that he just figured it out himself?" Bill asks.

Bev shrugs. "I kind of knew - wondered, more than anything. If I suspected, Stan definitely figured it out himself."

"But he probably told him anyway," Eddie points out. "Those two were so close…" He doesn't know if he trails off because nothing more needs to be said or because he can feel a little bitterness rise at the memories of Stan and Richie's friendship. It’s dumb, really, because all the Losers had and have their special friendships within their group, and it’s not like that means they’re any less important to each other. It's _ really _ not fair to Stan and Richie’s memories to be mad, but Eddie, at his core, has never really been fair. He’s too intense for that. Richie always understood that, because he was equally intense, albeit in a different way. It used to make Eddie’s head hurt if he thought about it too much, how their energies compensated for the other in some places and overlapped in others. Now he thinks he’ll get a headache if he doesn’t think about it often enough.

He comes out of his reverie in time to hear Beverly say, “In any case, those two deserve a toast.” She pours them all a shot, her hands shaking slightly. Eddie feels like he should say something about it for old times sake or something cheesy and fond like that, but he feels equally shaky and anyway, he can’t and won’t begrudge someone for wanting to drown their feelings. Not even as a joke. Not right now.

She lifts her glass. “To Richie and Stanley: two of the coolest and bravest losers I’ve ever known. I hope there is some type of afterlife, so that their unlikely friendship can go on forever.”

  
Before she can throw back her shot, Mike says, “It’s a friendship for the history books. I’ll make sure it gets a special mention in the next edition of _ A History of Derry," _ and winks. They all burst into giggles. They drink. Eddie decides that even if he only gets to keep four of his friends, at least he’ll still be able to have moments like these, moments where he feels their unity like a physical presence.

* * *

_ The quarry was soul-cleansing, but it had nothing on a hot shower. Eddie washed and scratched at his hair and scalp until his head tingled, and then he scrubbed his body down so hard that he looked like he had peeled away several layers of skin. He wouldn’t complain, honestly. _

_ His plan was to change into his comfiest pajamas, curl up under the covers, and go to sleep. The first two items on his list went off without a hitch, but sleep evaded him. He spent a long time shivering under the blanket with his eyes closed, hoping he could nudge his brain into going along with what he wanted. When that didn’t work, he allowed his eyes to open and he stared sightlessly into the dark. He resolutely did not think about Pennywise or Richie or Stan, though his mind was fixated on them. As a result, he ended up vacillating between being plagued by memories and feeling so fuzzy headed that it was almost like being asleep. _

_ He didn’t realize he had managed to doze off until he gasped into wakefulness a few hours later. The nightmare had been a terrifying vision into what could have happened if his friends had decided to carry him out of the cistern instead of Richie. He had been crying in the dream, kicking and screaming, but he had been almost comically easy to carry out anyway. He buried his face in his hands. It was wet, though he couldn’t tell where the tears ended and where the horror sweat began. _

_ He honestly did not know if he could have ever forgiven the others if things had played out like they did in his dream. Would he have cut off all contact with them? Left Derry immediately and hoped to forget? The thought of doing so brought a fresh round of tears, and he made a noise of disgust before standing up and going to wash his face. _

_ The bathroom was still a mess, though the sink was still intact. He had taken up Bev’s offer to use her shower, but declined when she quietly told him he could stay in her room. He wanted to be alone. He had briefly considered sleeping in Richie’s room, but the way his heart immediately ached at the thought was enough of a deterrent. _

_ And actually - he needed to unpack all of that. Not the fact that he was soul-crushingly in love with Richie (though he was definitely going to think on that some more, whether willingly or unwillingly), but that he was only ever going to fall in love with a man. Because he was gay. So, so gay. _

_ He scrubbed at his face with the soap he had brought along for the trip (because if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself - Jesus, was that another remnant of his upbringing or was that something he actually believed? - wait, fucking focus on one thing at a time, Kaspbrak). Though he knew he was one of only five living people that were repressed in general because of evil alien magic, he was also aware that not realizing he was gay until he was 40 did not make him a special case. _

_ He also had the feeling that, since being gay was as much a part of him as his name and his general personality, he wouldn’t have just forgotten his sexuality if he had figured it out beforehand. He almost definitely would have lived in denial, because he had in fact forgotten that he had been brave once, but the knowledge would have still been there, bright and stark no matter how much he tried to bury it. _

_ As it was, he couldn’t blame the clown for this. It was comforting in a way, to know that it was society and his mother that had kept him in hiding even from himself, because at least that was normal. Completely fucked up, but normal. _

_ He splashed his face, making sure to get all the soap off. He looked up into the mirror, half-expecting to see Bowers again. But no - Bowers was dead and gone. Eddie wished that all the words he had attacked them with could die with him. Then maybe his sexual orientation revelation would make him feel...not happy, not right now, but relieved, or barring that, settled within himself. Instead, he could still hear him hurling abuse and slurs at them, the words repeating over and over in his head until suddenly it wasn’t Henry’s voice saying them - it was his mother, her tone sickly sweet with that undercurrent of steel that never failed to make him bow to her wishes. _

_ He turned abruptly away from the mirror and made his way to the bed. He let himself flop down onto it, using the impact to force himself away from his current line of thought. He’d already lived all that once; he didn’t need to do it again. _

_ But how was he supposed to separate all... _ that _ from his sexuality? Wasn’t it all irrevocably intertwined now? Was he going to just have to muscle through each day closeted? And God, that fucking clown knew everything. The leper with its freaky tongue and bile, the closet on the other side of the Very Scary door...it all boiled down to the fact that Eddie had been scared, scared of being sick, scared that the inklings of things he felt for men might mean he was sick, and the clown had peered inside his mind and used all of it against him. _

_ After all, how could you fight against the fear of something you had convinced yourself wasn’t there? _

_ But he had, and he had come out of it alive and more in touch with who he was. The problem was that the price had been Richie’s life. He couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what being aware of being gay would be like: always having to pay a price that was much too high. If so, then he was still scared. Except now, despite the still very active hypochondria, he wasn’t really scared of being terminally ill - no, he was terrified of _ living _ , because nothing, not even the sacred clean bill of health, guaranteed that he’d be able to keep the things and people he loved safe. _

_ He fell asleep trying to convince himself that his fears wouldn’t somehow bring Pennywise back to life. _

_ ...and woke up again an hour later, already biting his lip to stop himself from making any sound. Making noise meant a loss of control, and he _ needed _ the control right now. He was never very good at keeping it, because a stoic man he was not, but still. Luckily, sleep claimed him quickly this time, and he didn’t wake up again until morning. _

_ He spent the day by himself, trying not to think too much. He saw the others sporadically throughout the day, but it seemed they also needed time to put themselves back together again, because none of them spoke. Hand waves sufficed as greetings and goodbyes, and gazes were met for mere milliseconds before dropping away. _

_ It certainly wasn’t a good day by anyone’s standards, but he couldn’t say it was his worst day either, and that wasn’t counting anything having to do with the clown. Which said a lot about the way his life had been going ever since his mother had taken him away from Derry. _

_ But thinking about that required _ thinking _ , so he filed it away to be examined during the night. The state of his life in New York would probably force itself into his nightmares anyway. _

_ (It did.) _

* * *

Eddie doesn’t know if the others suspected that they’d all end up in Bill’s room, but he certainly didn’t. Nevertheless, he’s not complaining.

They’ve collectively decided that they’re done drinking, but if the buzz wears off during the night, he’s certain they’ll go downstairs for more. Again, he is not opposed to this.

He’s not opposed to a lot of things right now. He feels nice. Loopy. Which is probably why, in the middle of them all tipsily affirming that they can find a shred of goodness and warmth in the fact that Richie decided to come out to them at all, Eddie blurts out, “I’m gay.”

Silence. If Eddie wasn’t so drunk, he thinks he would be freaking out right now. As it is, he just lets out a huff of laughter and leans back against the bed. He wonders if he should get up from the floor, because his ass is getting kind of numb, but ultimately decides it’s too much work.

In the next moment, he’s in the middle of a group hug. Someone is saying, “Thank you for telling us.” He’s pretty sure all of them are crying. It’s too much, but in a good way, so he lets his own tears fall and leans into the hug.

What happens next is something that he never would have predicted in a million years.

They’ve just gotten out of the hug when Bev says, “If we’re confessing things now, I’m actually bi. If we’re being specific, demisexual bi.”

Ben turns his head towards her, stars in his eyes. “Really? I’m pansexual.” Bev gives him a high five.

Mike raises his hand. “Recently learned the terms arospec and acespec. I am them. They are me.”

“Nice,” Bill says, and they all turn to look at him expectantly. He laughs. “And I’m bi, too.”

Bev whoops. As the rest of them cheer, Eddie stays quiet and wonders if maybe he’s in an alternate reality where none of his friends are straight. Because that’s just straight up not possible, right? He’s halfway to convinced that he’s right when Bill says, “No wonder we all came together.”

Eddie blinks. “What do you mean?”

“You know, because birds of a feather flock together? None of us are straight, it makes sense that we all found each other.”

Eddie ponders that for a few seconds. “Wait. Does that mean Stan wasn’t straight either?”

It’s a shock when Bill and Mike deliberately catch each other’s eyes and simultaneously blush. Eddie sits up straight, as do Ben and Bev. The three of them start to pepper Bill and Mike with questions, but quiet down when Bill holds up an authoritative hand. It’s a little funny how even after all this time, they still can’t help but to follow along with what he wants. Maybe now that years of alien-induced repression have come undone, they’ll grow out of the impulse to see Bill as their leader. Maybe not. Eddie doesn’t think they’ll mind either way.

Mike raises an eyebrow at Bill, as if to say, _ Are you going to tell them or should I? _ Bill shrugs, and so Mike speaks. “Uh yeah. You had all already left, and it was just me, Bill, and Stan. He and his parents moved right before senior year of high school, and the day before the move we were in the Clubhouse just...you know, trying not to be too sad. And then Stan said he had to go, because they were leaving early in the morning. He just went for it right then and there.”

Bill picks up the story. “Just kissed both of us on the lips and smiled at us. Mike and I were just -” he widens his eyes until he looks a little silly but mostly stunned, and they all laugh. “And Stanley says, ‘Been wanting to do that for a while. Figured if there was a time to do it, it was now.’ And he left. Didn’t even look back.” He turns to Mike. “I remember I tried to talk to you about it a few days later.”

Mike guffaws. “Oh my - you’re right! I remember that! We were on the cliff overlooking the quarry, and you stuttered so badly that you gave up. I would have felt bad but you - you…” He’s laughing too much to continue. Bill rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“I stripped down without a word and jumped into the water, just to get away from a conversation that I started. Yeah, I know.”

They all completely _ lose _ it. The thought of Big Bill, their fearless leader, awkwardly and dramatically exiting a conversation he brought up...it’s too much. It’s completely out of character. Eddie is _ never _ letting this go.

It’s when they calm down that Eddie thinks of something that takes him from calm to feeling sober, and not in the normal way. Uncomfortable sober. He clears his throat and all their heads swivel towards him. 

“I - I was always scared, you know? Of everything because of the germs, but it was layered.” He doesn’t know if he’s making any sense, but he’s going to keep talking until he runs out of words. “I didn’t even really know I was - you know, gay, but the fear and the weird guilt were still there, because my mom and fucking everybody else was saying that it was a sickness, that it was unnatural. And Stan was _ Stan. _ He was afraid of everything, maybe even more than I was, and not even for a concrete reason. How the hell was he not scared of that, too?” He’s horribly aware that his tone has gone plaintive, but with that awareness comes a weirdly defensive sensation of not giving a fuck. He just wants an answer.

To their credit, the rest of them don’t comment on it, and instead visibly consider his question. He feels a little twitchy in the quiet, the quiet that he caused, and wishes for the thousandth time since Neibolt that Richie was here. He always noticed when Eddie was overflowing with sensation and was about to start vibrating out of his body, and always, without fail, gave him an outlet.

Luckily for him, the contemplation doesn’t last long. Bill says, slowly, “I could be wrong, but...what Stan was really afraid of was things he couldn’t control, right? Not in a way that would make him a terrible friend, just - he liked it when things went according to plan, and he didn’t like change.” His face lights up as something occurs to him. “It wasn’t about the poison ivy really, it was that we didn’t know what was out there and he always thought it was better to be safe than sorry.” 

Mike nods eagerly. “But he was logical. He didn’t believe in getting worked up over things that weren’t subject to change. Like - he was never scared of being Jewish, because that was just who he was. He _ was _ terrified of the pressure of being the rabbi’s son, because that opens up a whole lot of possibilities for fucking up. And the bullying! He was scared of being bullied for being Jewish, because he knew it didn’t have to be that way. And also being bullied is just all around a bad time.” 

Eddie snorts. He thinks he gets it now. “So you’re saying...who he was attracted to was just a part of him, so there was no need to be scared of it. It wasn’t going to change, so he didn’t have to worry about it. But being bullied for it was scary, because there's so many variables there...And you never know what other people might think, which is why he waited until his last day to kiss - both of you. Wow. Go Stan.” He sends his dirtiest, most Richie-like leer Bill and Mike’s way. They roll their eyes and reach over to shove at him, but they nod in confirmation.

“I think he had anxiety,” Ben says softly. “That’s why he was so worried about change, and why it seemed like everything made him nervous -”

“And why he was always so sad,” Bev says. Ben nods at her.

“I think we - we were the most unchangeable changeable thing in Stan’s life, if that makes sense.” They all nod. Ben continues. “He knew he could count on us, but he also knew that friendships don’t always last forever, so he never felt...grounded. No matter how calm he always seemed.” He shrugs. His eyes start to water. “I don’t know. He ki - did what he did, and I think it was because -”

“He never felt stable,” Eddie finishes for him. His voice is choked up. “He could’ve been the happiest fucker in the world when you called, Mike, and he still would have done it, because none of us were there to pull him out of his head, and the thought of us wasn’t enough.” Eddie knows he sounds angry, and he is, but not at Stan. “Stupid clown, making us all forget. Like he wanted to make sure Stan never got a chance. _ Fucking Christ.” _

The buzz has definitely worn off now, but they’re all too despondent to get up and do something about it. Mike rubs the back of his neck and says, “I don’t know if this makes things worse or better, but...I think he was happy. Maybe I’m wrong but. It was a feeling. There was music playing in the background when I called - calming, smooth. Very Stan. It’s not much to go off of, but…”

Yeah. It’s the bond at work again. Eddie’s willing to bet his life on Mike being right, and also doesn’t know if it makes things better or worse. Before he can torture himself over it further, Bev asks, “Do you think we should visit her? His wife?”

Eddie’s response is out of his mouth before he can fully process he even had one at the ready: “Yes. She’s not a Loser, but she was married to one, and if - if he was happy with her, then she could use a support system. She won’t get a better one than us.”

They all start to smile, and Mike says, “All right. I’m making a group chat, so that we can all plan for that. And anything else we might want to do. I want to see you guys more often now that we’ll remember each other.”

Amidst the cheerful agreement, Eddie thinks of his own life, what he has to get back to. There’s no doubt about what he should do - divorce Myra. He can’t say he doesn’t know what he was thinking when he married her, because he does, and it’s horrifying enough that he’s going to put a lid on it until he can talk to a therapist about it. Or his little group of friends. Or both. Both would probably be best.

What he doesn't know is if he should give her the full reason of why he wants a divorce. There's the obvious reasons that he's definitely going to lay out in front of her: theirs is a very toxic relationship. She likes that he thinks - thought- he was sick, gets a twisted satisfaction out of being in control of his supposed delicate constitution. He's not going to take that anymore. Not to mention that he doesn't love her at all, nor she him.

But the gay thing. He knows she has no right to know; he doesn't owe her or anyone else details about his private life. This isn't about her, it's about him. Will not telling her be akin to shoving himself inside the closet? Will it be the start of a downward spiral where he knowingly shoves down that part of himself?

He's afraid, he realizes. He's afraid that he'll forget how to be brave again if he doesn't tell her, like when he used to convince himself that it was ok to spend the whole day in bed and take a break, only to find that a week had gone by and he hadn't showered or eaten or done _ anything. _ He had been living by himself for a few months by then, and half a year later he had moved back in with his mother, the taste of his defeat bitter on his tongue, made worse by the malicious satisfaction in Sonia Kaspbrak's eyes.

_ "I told you it was just something you needed to get out of your system, Eddie-bear. Just a little delusion. You don't really want to leave me." _ His mother had said that to him, but he can imagine Myra saying the same words all too well. He has to tell her, has to be completely honest if he's really going to break free of his wretched life.

And yet...he knows what she's like. Nowhere near as imposing as his mother, but intimidating and manipulative all the same. He can see it now: he'll tell her everything, tell her he's gayer than the loudest, proudest gay bar in San Francisco or something - and she'll refuse it. Straight up refuse to recognize the information as real, and poke and mutilate it until she's convinced him that he's not gay, maybe he's just confused. He's _ sick _ and _ delicate _and easily affected by long bouts of time away from Myra Kaspbrak, caretaker extraordinaire.

_ Stay with me, Eddie-bear. Good boy. Stay. _

Just because he knows it's going to happen doesn't mean he'll be any more equipped to handle it when it does.

He can feel himself starting to panic cry. Life was supposed to be easier after this. His fears and troubles were supposed to die with that clown and they kind of did, but not before giving life to new ones. 

Bev takes notice. "Hey, hey Eddie," she says as she scooches closer to him and rests her hand on his knee. Without thinking twice about it, he takes her hand in his own and squeezes. She squeezes back. "Hon, sweetheart, what's wrong? Is it…" She bites her lip, then pushes on. "Is this about Richie?"

Ok. Ok. He can read between the lines. She has intuited his feelings. They probably all have, given everything he's said and done since Richie died. It gives him another burst of anxiety, but at this point, he's too tired to focus on every ongoing crisis he's been having at the same time. He'll put a lid on this one too and focus on the Myra issue.

He shakes his head in answer to her question. "Ok," she says. "Can you tell me what it is?"

When all he does is take in a wheezing breath, she shifts so she's on her knees in front of him, grabs his face gently, and says firmly, "Look at me. Look at how I'm breathing." She takes an exaggerated breath so he can see her chest rise and fall. "Follow my breaths. Breathe with me." With nothing else to do, Eddie falls into the familiar groove of following the orders of someone close to him. He breathes.

An indeterminate amount of time later, he's calmer. Still wracked with nerves, but no longer panicking. The important thing is, he can speak again. "It's Myra," he whispers. "I want to leave her. Divorce her. But she's just like my mom. Down to the homophobia."

Understanding flickers over Bev's face. Suddenly, he remembers her piece of shit father. He thinks about how back at the restaurant, her expression went tight and uncomfortable when Bill asked if she was married. She had not-so-neatly dodged the question. 

"You know," she starts faux-casually, "Tom, my soon to be ex, didn't like that I'm not straight. Eventually I told him the bi part was just a phase and the demi part just a delusion. It didn't do me any favors. Now I'm leaving him, and I'm going to throw every part of me he tried to smother right into his smug, stupid face. What do you think of that?"

He thinks she's his hero. He thinks that she's the coolest person he's ever known. He thinks that even if he was into girls, he still wouldn't be into her like that, because he wishes she had been his sister, so that even if they still had to have abusive parents, they could have weathered the storm together.

Eddie thinks he's a little in love with her, in a way that isn't romantic but doesn't feel like normal platonic either.

What he says is: "I think that sounds fantastic."

She smiles at him, and he figures she heard it all anyway.

* * *

They don't bury Richie in Derry. They don't bury Richie anywhere in the end, because a call to his agent resulted in a call to his lawyer and it turned out Richie wanted to be cremated.

They were originally going to have a small service to honor his memory, but they cancel those plans. They're the only ones who cared about Richie in this bumfuck town anyway, save for his parents, who are dead and buried in the land of retirees: Florida. Besides, if they really want to attend a memorial service, they can just go to the one that will be publicly held a month from now, courtesy of Richie's manager. They will go. They've even been invited to speak.

Eddie takes his ashes. He doesn't know what he's going to do with them yet, because Richie's will didn't exactly specify, but he's sure he'll figure it out sooner or later. 

The rest of the Losers Club has left, except for Mike, who is training someone to be the new librarian. He swears he'll be out of Derry as soon as that's done. Eddie believes him, but just in case, he's definitely going to bug him about it daily in their shiny new group chat. He thinks the others have the same idea.

As for Eddie, he has one last thing he has to do before he leaves Derry. 

He parks his car by the entrance to the Kissing Bridge and just sits for a while. Over the past month and a half, he's been hit by the realization that it's all over multiple times. They're free of the evil that made Derry its home, they're free to keep each other, and...they're free to change the lives they've been living for the past 27 years.

He fingers the card Bev gave him before she left. It contains the number of her divorce lawyer. Apparently, during the time they had stayed in town seeing to post-death arrangements, Bev had also been busy researching divorce attorneys, calling one up, and getting her divorce underway. Tom should be getting served any day now, according to her. 

She had also told him that she and Ben would be back from their pre-marriage honeymoon at the end of _ this _ week, and that as soon as they were, she would be coming back one last time to pick him up and take him to New York. The end of this week is today. He checks his watch. She should be arriving at the library in a couple of hours, which means he still has plenty of time before they wrangle another promise out of Mike that he'll leave town and then drive off into the metaphorical sunset.

He hasn't called the lawyer yet. Bev wanted out of her marriage as quickly as possible because it's a situation that will probably call for a restraining order and endless meetings. His situation is different. For one thing, he has an airtight prenup in place. It was the one thing he had stood his ground on, and he's glad for it now. For another, Myra is a terrible person, but she won't stalk him. Instead, she'll wait for him to come crawling back, sneering smugness at the ready. She really is just like his mom. Unlike his mother though, she'll be waiting for an eternity. He can afford to hold off on a divorce until he's left no trace of himself in their house. 

He's glad that Bev will be there for the "leave no trace" plan. She's not susceptible to Myra's machinations, not like he is, and if she sees his will start to crumble, she'll be able to help him build it back up. 

It's a strange sort of relief to know that needing help isn't the same as being weak, and that asking for it doesn't mean automatically giving up control of your life.

He looks out the window. Right. He’s here for a reason, and that reason is not sitting in his car contemplating his future. He steps out and walks through the covered part of the bridge and out the other side. A few feet from the wall, he spots an empty space on the worn out boards, and he crouches down. A little further down to his right, he catches sight of a faded carving that says _ L.M.+M.T. _ with a scratch straight through. It makes him chuckle. He wonders if either _ L.M _ . or _ M.T. _ scratched their initials out, or if someone else did it in a jealous rage. People are funnily emotional that way. Himself included, considering what he’s here to do, not to mention his entire personality.

He gets out the little pocket knife that he bought specifically for this, and gets to work. Thirty minutes later and he’s finally done. Either he’s old, or carving stuff into wood really is that hard, but either way his arm hurts and he’s sweating a little. It’s worth it though, to be able to see the fruits of his labor right in front of him, and to know that it’ll be here forever: his own little memorial to Richie Tozier.

Carefully, he runs his fingers over his creation: caresses the _ R, _ traces the lines of the wonky little heart that wraps around it.

"I love you, Richie." His instinct is to whisper, so that no one can hear him and hurt him for it, but fuck that. "I always have loved you, even when I forgot you, and you know what? I think I always will."

Derry doesn't deserve to have this part of him, but it's going to get it anyway. Eddie has found that spite is a wonderful motivator, and he's going to make sure the homophobes in this hateful little place have to unwittingly share space with the symbol of his big, gay love. In fact, while at first he wanted to get out and never return, now he thinks he just might return every now and then, just to make sure the carving stays fresh. 

He gets up and walks back to his car. He briefly wonders if Richie ever returned his feelings. Driving each other up the wall and being soft with each other in turns had been a mutual decision, after all. Then again, maybe that was just Richie: a star glowing bright and burning, burning, burning, not able to help singeing everyone around him in a way that they all appreciated.

He'll never know, and he thinks he's made some sort of peace with that. Because while it's comforting and awe-inspiring to think that maybe Richie loved him too, there's something tragically breathtaking about his feelings being unrequited. The thought tears him to pieces, yes, but if he tilts his head way over and squints, he can sort of see it through a lens where it seems romantic, in that terrible way stories like that of Éponine and Marius or Pip and Estella are. Like the "tragical romances" his favorite book character, Anne of Green Gables, was obsessed with. 

(Myra doesn't know he owns the entire series, nor does she know that he unabashedly loves the red-haired heroine in a way that always seemed too much like self-recognition for him to be comfortable with. But that was before. Maybe, once he finds a place of his own, he can display the books proudly on a bookshelf.)

As he drives to the library, he asks himself when exactly he became such a romantic. But he already knows the answer: he always has been, since childhood. It's like a side effect of feeling everything as much as he does. The thing that has really changed is that he's no longer ashamed of that.

He smiles. Thinks to himself, _ More power to me. _

* * *

** _ Summer 1989 _ **

_The idea hit him the day after the incidents with Henry Bowers' cousin and the Paul Bunyan statue. He tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't leave him alone.  
_

_ If it was a girl he was into, he'd take his time looking for the perfect spot to carve their initials. It would be safe. But it wasn't, even though he knew it could be, if he just ignored the way his head was turned by boys just as much as it was with girls, if he ignored the way he was consumed by thoughts of Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. _

_ He picked a random spot several feet away from the covered part of the bridge and got to work, checking over his shoulder every now and then to make sure no one was watching. You could never be too careful in Derry, especially when you were doing something reckless like he was. _

_ As soon as he was finished, he tucked away the knife, pulled up his jeans, and got ready to leave. Before he did though, he took a moment to stare at all the other initials on display. A little to the left of his neat little _ R + E, _ there was an _ L.M.+M.T. _ with a slash straight through it. He huffed out a small laugh. He didn't think he'd ever be mad enough to slash through his own carving, but a little part of him hoped that maybe his feelings would one day fade. _

_ He doubted it, not least because a bigger part of him really didn't want to live in a world where he didn't love Eds. _

_ Richie biked away and felt a little lighter now that he'd gotten that out of his system, but his heart was heavy with the thought that Eddie might see what he had engraved onto the wooden planks. _

_ What would he think? Would he catch on? Would he say anything about it if he did? Richie shook his head at himself. Eddie probably wouldn't even see it, and even if he did, no way would he make the connection. Unless of course, he _ wanted _ there to be a connection, because he was just as crazy over Richie as Richie was over him, and - _

_ No. It wasn't going to happen that way, just like Richie wasn't going to stop having those sort of fantasies over and over and over again. The least he could do at this point was wait to have them until he was safe in his room, though. _

_ With that thought in mind, he pedaled faster, all the way home. _

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't get it, the one secret Eddie didn't discover was whether or not Richie loved him back :)
> 
> I ended up being really into this idea so now possible sequels might include:
> 
> \- Bev and Eddie confronting Myra when Eddie gets his stuff from the house, and later confronting Tom when they get Bev's things from her house
> 
> \- Telling the world Richie was bi, probably at his memorial service idk
> 
> \- Snippets from each of the Losers pov about how why they weren't afraid of their sexuality like Richie and Eddie were 
> 
> \- they all go visit Patty to be her support system
> 
> \- Eddie reads Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and cries about it because its beautiful but also because it's the first piece of gay literature he's read (and yes that is where I got the title from)


End file.
